


mismatched pieces

by bobtheacorn



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, Gift Exchange, I feel nostalgia in this chili's tonight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28244523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobtheacorn/pseuds/bobtheacorn
Summary: Gansey's tentative smile breaks into a wide grin, and it's like the clouds evaporating so the sun can shine. Blue is surprised when the snow gathered on the porch railings doesn't melt away. She wants to put her hands in his hair and drag him down and kiss him, but she refrains with a great sense of self-control.The next moment, Gansey's shoddily-wrapped gift is getting pushed back against Blue's chest, her hands fumbling for it blindly, and Gansey is leaping off the porch, "Hold that thought, Jane!"/Gansey and Blue exchange gifts.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	mismatched pieces

The porch of 300 Fox Way is still the only place in or out of the house that allows for any real privacy, which is why Blue stalls them here even though the cold air is pinching at her cheeks and making her shiver inside the patched layers of her overcoat. Snow flurries down like huge cotton balls all around them, blanketing the world. It makes a hushing sound like static being brushed away from an old television screen. Gansey has his gloved hands tucked into his pockets and is standing very close to her beneath the yellow porch light, which halos his brown hair in threads of gold and glints off his glasses.

Proximity and anticipation warms the air between them.

Blue has been waiting all evening for this opportunity, but even down to the wire, she hesitates. She ducks her head and sighs into the soft yarn of her scarf, and works to extricate the cylindrical bundle from one of her coat pockets. The plain brown paper is of the sturdy variety, so - even though it doesn't tear - it looks rumpled and unimpressive once it's revealed.

"Here," Blue says without ceremony.

She thrusts it into Gansey's surprised hands as they make their reappearance.

Gansey stares down at it, his mouth parted.

Seeing him speechless over it is worth the stress Blue's heart is putting the rest of her body through. It's beating against the cage of her ribs like it wants to get out and it's not being gentle about it, suffusing her cheeks with heat and weakening her legs. Still, she watches Gansey determinedly. His surprise gives way to confusion, which gives way to recognition, and then excitement - all within the span of a few moments. A smile tugs up the corner of Gansey's mouth as he meets Blue's eyes.

"What's this?" he asks.

"What's it look like, Gansey?"

"It looks like a present."

"How observant."

"Are we allowed to do presents?"

This seems like a silly question until Blue realizes that she doesn't allow Gansey to buy her so much as a soda most of the time. She has recently eased up on that policy, just a bit, and only because Gansey has made a game out of it. He offers to pay for her lunch if she wants to pay for his next time - only he deliberately "forgets" next time and swipes a card before Blue can so much as pull out her wallet. So Blue takes things out of his hands at the grocery store and darts to the check-out line, staring at him defiantly as she pays and takes the bag.

These moments always make him protest, the same way that Blue squawks when she's been denied her hard won right to pay her own way. It doesn't churn up any negativity between them.

"It's Christmas time isn't it?" Blue answers.

Well, about a week off.

But it's in the air nevertheless.

It's in the multi-colored glow of lights up and down the street, and in the festive hangings all around town, and even in the snowfall, soft and unexpected as it muffles the night. Gansey's tentative smile breaks into a wide grin, and it's like the clouds evaporating so the sun can shine. Blue is surprised when the snow gathered on the porch railings doesn't melt away. She wants to put her hands in his hair and drag him down and kiss him, but she refrains with a great sense of self-control.

The next moment, Gansey's shoddily-wrapped gift is getting pushed back against Blue's chest, her hands fumbling for it blindly, and Gansey is leaping off the porch, "Hold that thought, Jane!" He jogs down the steps and toward where the Pig is parked. An un-Ganseylike shriek pierces the air when his foot catches unexpectedly on a patch of snow. He nearly busts his ass on the sidewalk, just barely manages to keep himself upright and moving forward, stumbling against the side of the car.

This does nothing to preserve his dignity.

The sound startles a laugh out of Blue and she is still bent double, breathless and laughing through her tears, when Gansey plods back to her, climbing the steps with much more care.

"You're laughing. I nearly  _ died _ and you're laughing, _ " _ he gasps. His feigned outrage loses all credibility when he's smiling like that. When his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are sparkling and he is  _ here _ and very much alive. "I hope you'd at least have the decency to call an ambulance."

Blue tries to stifle her laughter behind her hand, but it's a losing battle. "I would have gotten around to it," she assures him.

Gansey laughs dryly, "That's very reassuring, Jane. Here."

He presents to her the box he took from the trunk of the car while Blue was busy laughing against her knees. This sobers her up a bit. Blue wipes her chilly face dry with the sleeve of her coat and straightens up, still smiling and feeling giddy.

"That had better not be a mink coat," she says.

"It might be a mink, though."

Gansey rattles the box as if there's something moving around inside and it's hard to hold onto. Whatever it is doesn't make a sound so it's either packed in tight or it's something soft. The box is quite large. Blue puffs out a laugh at him, for him, with him, because Gansey is laughing, too. Neither of them even notice much of the cold anymore. They exchange gifts on the front porch, while a radio blares yule time jingles from deep within the house and the snowfall weighs down.

Gansey's gift to Blue is wrapped in the cheap kind of paper usually found in the bins at the Dollar General.

It's got that baudy holiday shimmer on it, blue and silver lines running across it in varying widths and shades. It almost looks like a sea of tree trunks if Blue unfocuses her eyes and holds it at a distance. She admires the novelty of it for an entire five seconds before tearing it open at the loosest corner. The box itself is more difficult to navigate - she has to take out her pocket knife and cut the packing tape, through the center of the shipping label addressed to R. C. Gansey III at Monmouth Manufacturing, etcetera, etcetera.

"You could have made it easier on me, Gansey," she complains, juggling the knife and the box and the paper.

"I thought you liked to work for your spoils," Gansey teases.

Blue holds the knife a little more threatening.

Gansey laughs, raising one hand in genuine surrender and backing up a single step. Blue's gift to him gave him significantly less trouble. The paper has already been crumpled into a palm-sized ball and set on the arm of the nearest wicker chair. He unrolls the length of simple knitted yarn between his hands. It's a bright yellow scarf. There are a few snags in the pattern, more visible than Blue realized under the porch light, and her face heats as each imperfection leaps out to glare at her.

Her desire to make something for him and the mawing reality that Gansey would not be here to enjoy it had warred inside of Blue as fall crept over them. It stayed her hand every time she reached for the knitting needles or rummaged through the discount fabric bin. But all that's over, now, and things are fine. She has bent all of her spare time toward its completion in the months since then - and it shows in every skipped stitch that wrinkles the pattern, and every line where her tension was off.

Gansey doesn't seem to notice.

He pulls it through both of his hands, one after the other, looking at it in awe. He traces over every line, every bump. He bundles it up and puts it to his face, and breathes in deeply, exhaling slowly.

"Blue, you made this?"

"I make everything, don't I?" she says flippantly. She has a certain aesthetic she's trying to maintain, after all. Self-conscious about her handiwork, for probably the first time in her entire life, she adds, "I rushed a bit to get it done. I wasn't sure…"

She falters, not wanting to explain.

Gansey doesn't need her to.

He pulls off the scarf he's wearing - a salmon colored thing that's cashmere or silk or some expensive, artful blend of both - and stuffs it into his coat pocket. He leaves it dangling, the threadlike tassels perilously close to the slush on the porch that has formed under their feet, as he wraps Blue's scarf around his neck. It's thicker than the other one, tickling his face and neck and ears.

Gansey beams at her, his fingers curled deep into the folds.

"I love it," he says, and his voice is so earnest and deep, caught in his hidden throat, that the heat in Blue's cheeks swims into her eyes. Gansey clears his throat, half-laughs, "I'm not nearly so crafty. I could have made you a paper mache of Fox Way, I suppose. But I thought you might get more mileage and enjoyment out of something like this."

He gestures at the box that she still hasn't opened despite freeing it from its encasement of tape and cheap wrappings. Blue tucks her knife away and lifts one side of the lid, then the other. She has to reach her hand in and grab a hold of it, letting the box drop to the porch, to get the full scope of what it is. She shakes it out, held up high in front of her.

It's a strikingly blue quilt, taller than Blue and twice as wide. It has a bohemian sort of look to it. Various different patterns and fabrics - all thin and well-worn soft, all different shapes and sizes - have been stitched together. Thrilling shades of blue, dark and light, teal and sapphire, with accents of pale yellow and bright gold; with white embroidery that swirls from patch to patch to patch, bringing the mismatched pieces all together.

It looks like something Blue would have made herself if she had thought about it. The quilt has clearly been crafted with a lot of care and attention despite the cobbled-together look.

She loves it instantly.

She hates the nasty weight settling in her chest that wonders how much it cost.

Gansey pokes the back of it and then grabs the edges, holding it safely off the porch so she can fold it back up into something more manageable. Blue opens her mouth, unsure of what's going to out of it, and Gansey unintentionally speaks over her, voice lifting in that enthusiastic way of his, "I wanted to find something sensible and unique that made me think of you - which a was a far more difficult undertaking than I anticipated, can I just say. Especially since I wasn't entirely sure you would be open to exchanging gifts... I asked Maura and Calla to help me pick something out. I hope that's alright."

He's nervous about it.

That tiny, familiar crease forms between his eyebrows.

Gansey plucks at his lip and catches himself, and drops his hands to fumble with the scarf, his fingers slipping in between some of the too-large stitches. Rather than answer, Blue closes the distance between them. She wraps both arms around his chest, pressing her face into Gansey's shoulder - the scarf that smells like her soap hand lotion, the coat that smells like his body spray - and pinning the blanket firmly between them.

"I love it," she says.

Her warm breath against his neck makes him jump even as his arms close around her shoulders. Gansey tucks his face into her hair. 

"I'm glad to hear it, Jane." He chuckles, "We both had ideas about keeping the other warm, didn't we?" 

"Great minds," Blue says, reaching up to tap her own forehead.

His laughter falls softly against her lips and Blue relishes in the feel of him, hugging him tighter.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually started this a while back and never finished or posted it because I like to sit on my wips for some reason - but here we are in time for the Holidays, so it worked out, didn't it?! I needed something soft and sweet to get my mind off of stuff. Thank you guys for reading, I hope this gave you some good feels!


End file.
